


Orchestration

by Sarah T (SarahT), SarahT



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-20 15:18:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9498002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SarahT/pseuds/Sarah%20T, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SarahT/pseuds/SarahT
Summary: "Playyou."Bothof you.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Spike for the beta.

“She looks so _well_ ,” Mummy says.“You’d hardly think she’d been shut away for so long.”

“Not a bit,” Father agrees.

Mycroft reviews his choppy mental footage of the little musical _fete_ earlier and can find no basis for this remark in the images of his sister he summons.But it’s been a long day of helicopter rides and security protocols and parental appeasement; contradiction would require more effort than he is willing to put forth at the moment.Across the living room, Sherlock, slouched in his chair, doesn’t reply, either. 

“In fact,” Mummy goes on, clearly determined to treat the silence as assent regardless of the probabilities, “she’s improving so much, I’m going to ask the doctors next time when they think she can be let out.”

That startles an answer from Mycroft.“She can’t ever be let out, Mummy.”

Pleased to have gotten a response, she says brightly, “Well, that certainly was your plan, Mycroft, but I think we’ve established how foolish that was.I _shall_ ask them.It may take a little longer, but it’s not as if _you’ve_ accomplished anything keeping her there _thirty years_.”

The remark is meant to hurt.Mycroft can _sense_ the puncture, but not feel it.He’s weightless, intangible.He looks down at the drink in his hand.He’s had two Scotches: not enough to account for it, unless Sherlock’s drugged him.He looks back at his brother, who is running his fingers along his bow, over and over again, a slow, contemplative movement of length against length. No sign of mischief in his eyes, and he’s been drinking, too. 

Father says, placatingly, “I’m sure Mycroft meant well.No matter how poorly it all turned out.”

“As if good intentions have ever counted for anything in this world.”

Mycroft surprises himself by standing up.Everything is becoming indistinct, blurred around him, as if a fog that they couldn’t see had seeped into his parents’ home. Sherlock, as though frosted over, is haloed angular beneath the reading light. “Do as you please, Mummy,” he says.She could castigate Sherrinford’s board til the end of time; even _he_ couldn’t get Euros released now. “I’m tired.Good night.”

  


He feels even less steady on his feet when he gets to his room.His room that was never really _his_ room, that he’d only stayed in on school vacations.Tonight, though, it wavers around him.It’s a palimpsest; he can glimpse the outline of his refuge at Musgrave beneath the artless reality of the cottage, and an ache catches in his chest, almost knocking him down.He strips off his clothing, strewing it carelessly across the floor, and decides it’s too much trouble to retrieve his pajamas from the luggage on the rack by the bed.So he crawls between the sheets naked, grateful for the fixed point as the room revolves around him.

But he doesn’t fall asleep, even though the surfaces of the room ripple and flicker and reconstitute themselves into cherished, long-lost visions as though he were already dreaming.He listens to the indistinct murmur of voices from the living room until they fall away, earlier than he would have expected.He hears the door to Mummy and Father’s room shut.Then he hears the footsteps coming down the hall.He expects the next sounds to be Sherlock passing his door and opening his own, but instead he hears his own click open.

Sherlock is silhouetted against the dim hall light.His stance is uncertain.Mycroft tries to sit up, puzzled, but has to subside halfway there.“Sherlock?” he mumbles.

Sherlock says nothing, but steps inside.He closes the door behind him, and Mycroft catches the sound of the lock turning.He falls back on the bed.Of course, he thinks, of course Sherlock is here, because they—

Sherlock puts the desk lamp on and begins drawing off his own clothes.Mycroft watches with a slowly gathering, if indistinct, excitement as he methodically exposes his wrists, throat, chest, back, letting the shirt fall amongst Mycroft’s own things.It’s a familiar gesture, performed since…since nearly the beginning, though he can’t quite remember the first time.It’s unimportant.Sherlock has _always_ been so beautiful, always, and this methodical revelation of his skin is both an offering to Mycroft and a reminder that Mycroft does not have the power to say no.

As if he would _want_ the power to say no, he thinks, as Sherlock comes to the bed.As if he would ever want to stop this.Sherlock leans down, off-balance, to kiss him.He looks almost as dazed as Mycroft feels, but when Mycroft slides a hand over his thigh, he groans, too loudly.

Mycroft pulls at his arm.He has no strength, he can’t get leverage, but Sherlock seems unable to resist, and tumbles down so that Mycroft can roll on top of him.He presses his palm against Sherlock’s mouth.“Quiet, little brother,” he whispers, and is echoed by a hundred memories of the action, the same struggle for silence.“We’ll be found out.”

Sherlock shakes his head, and Mycroft lifts his hand away.“No, we won’t,” he says softly, eyes sparkling dimly.“I drugged them this time.”

“You clever, wicked boy.”Mycroft can’t hide the sharp thrill.“But we still must be careful.”

Careful is what has protected them, all these years, all these years that they have been unable to sleep under the same roof without first coming together, tangling in frantic silence, reinscribing on each other’s bodies through proscribed touch the reminder that they were the only survivors of a lost civilization.No one else knows their sacred texts, shares in their rites.Mummy and Father are an irrelevancy, an obscene joke.Mycroft finds Sherlock, hard and ready for him (he is always ready for him, in this place while their parents snore in the next room, in a rarely-used study in the Diogenes while the members drift down the hall like disgruntled spirits, on Sherlock’s couch while John is downstairs helping Mrs. Hudson), and rocks against him dreamily as he strokes.

“Talking to you that way,” Sherlock gasps.“As if they understood _anything_.”He captures Mycroft’s other hand, and kisses it with teeth, tearing away Mummy’s touch.Mycroft buries his face in Sherlock’s chest to muffle his own groan.

It always takes longer than he expects, their bodies unwilling to reach a conclusion.He would consent for it to go on forever in the drowsy dark.But then Sherlock continues, as if there hadn’t been a pause: “Don’t you think they’ve troubled us long enough?”

Mycroft lifts his head, excitement swallowing excitement.He already knows what he means, but he’s suddenly desperate to hear Sherlock say it.“What?”

“Father. _Mummy_.It’s time, Mycroft”—he gasps, nearly losing the thread, but Mycroft’s hand urges him on—“ _it’s time to set us free_.”

Mycroft’s whole body jerks as he comes, and Sherlock with him, so that for a moment they are but one uncanny creature twisting in the bed.Then they lay where they’ve fallen, Mycroft’s mouth pressed against Sherlock’s collarbone, his fingers caging Sherlock’s elbow.

“Soon,” he tells him.“Soon.”

Everything slows; they’ve dropped out of time altogether.At some unpinpointable moment, Sherlock removes himself efficiently from Mycroft’s grip, rises, and dresses without a word.Mycroft is pinned to the bed by the dizziness, watching.As Sherlock slips out the door without looking back, he can’t understand the sorrow that is washing over him, and then he can’t remember the sorrow, either, and he finally sleeps.


End file.
